While the hacker made his way to the door to disarm the alarm module in place there – along with the fragmentation mine it would trigger if set off – Jensen’s task would be to keep watch for the garage’s guardian. He’d already told Stacks to stick with Pritchard, framing it like he wanted the ex-steeplejack to protect the hacker, but more truthfully it was to keep him out of harm’s way. Stacks wasn’t a fighter, he didn’t have the instinct for it, and Jensen was afraid he would get the man killed.
They split apart, and Jensen drew his CA-4, flicking off the safety catch. He pulled back the slide to be sure a round was already in the chamber; there it was, the tip of the bullet glowing with a faint blue halo. The modified rounds were a gift from Pritchard, and instead of a lead head or a hollowpoint, they had a tiny pack of conductive gel and a super-dense capacitor at the tip. On impact, the shots released a small, focused electromagnetic pulse, supposedly powerful enough to give any electronic hardware a headache. If they didn’t work as advertised, he wouldn’t be around to complain about it.
Stalking around abandoned, dust-covered cars, Jensen moved deeper into the dimness. Off to his right, he heard the rattle and click of tools as Pritchard got to work on disarming the lock.
He stepped past a support pillar and his gaze fell on the perfect, straight edges of a giant cube measuring five meters along each axis. In the shadows, it was black and featureless, but as he watched the surface of the cube trembled. Jensen caught the sound of a muffled curse from the direction of Pritchard and Stacks.
The cube gave off a hydraulic sigh. Then with a flurry of motion, the sides of it folded up and away like some complex puzzle toy. The dormant Box-Guard robot, likely awakened by the hacker’s actions, was stirring.
Legs emerged from each corner, along with gun clusters and an articulated neck that ended in a rectangular, cyclopean head. Pin-lamps snapped on, flooding the garage with sodium-bright light – and found Jensen standing before it.
The Box-Guard hesitated a split-second, still getting its bearings as it rebooted, and that was the vital window of action Jensen needed. Aiming the semi-automatic at the robot’s head, he put a shot right into its sensor grid. Bright sparks flared, but all that seemed to do was narrow the machine’s focus. Its legs stomped as it turned in place to give Jensen its full attention. He heard the whine of servos as the gun pods spun up to power.
“Shit!” He stood his ground long enough to fire a few more shots, but the EMP rounds seemed to do little to slow it.
The Box-Guard made a grinding sound and advanced on him, picking up speed with each stride. Jensen broke into a sprint as it came after him, swerving aside as one of the robot’s legs kicked away a Navig subcompact, rolling the car on to its roof. The guns tracked him, swinging back and forth as they coughed out shotgun rounds, but Jensen dodged and wove between the parked vehicles, making it hard for the machine to target him. Belatedly, a recorded message began to play, a soothing female voice speaking in Chinese delivering some kind of demand for a surrender.
When the robot stumbled into a pillar, Jensen realized that the EMP rounds had made some difference, just not enough to deal with the machine outright. Its motions were becoming sluggish and drunken.
He took a breath of dusty air and circled back around a sedan, before launching himself right at the Box-Guard. If he could just place his shots in the right spot…
The robot slammed a leg into the concrete floor with enough force to knock him off-balance and his first round went wide. He fired another, clipping the side of the Box-Guard’s menacing head, and that seemed to agitate the machine. If it was having difficulty targeting him with its guns, then the robot’s programming told it to use a more direct,
more kinetic
approach instead.
Rearing up,
They split apart, and Jensen drew his CA-4, flicking off the safety catch. He pulled back the slide to be sure a round was already in the chamber; there it was, the tip of the bullet glowing with a faint blue halo. The modified rounds were a gift from Pritchard, and instead of a lead head or a hollowpoint, they had a tiny pack of conductive gel and a super-dense capacitor at the tip. On impact, the shots released a small, focused electromagnetic pulse, supposedly powerful enough to give any electronic hardware a headache. If they didn’t work as advertised, he wouldn’t be around to complain about it.
Stalking around abandoned, dust-covered cars, Jensen moved deeper into the dimness. Off to his right, he heard the rattle and click of tools as Pritchard got to work on disarming the lock.
He stepped past a support pillar and his gaze fell on the perfect, straight edges of a giant cube measuring five meters along each axis. In the shadows, it was black and featureless, but as he watched the surface of the cube trembled. Jensen caught the sound of a muffled curse from the direction of Pritchard and Stacks.
The cube gave off a hydraulic sigh. Then with a flurry of motion, the sides of it folded up and away like some complex puzzle toy. The dormant Box-Guard robot, likely awakened by the hacker’s actions, was stirring.
Legs emerged from each corner, along with gun clusters and an articulated neck that ended in a rectangular, cyclopean head. Pin-lamps snapped on, flooding the garage with sodium-bright light – and found Jensen standing before it.
The Box-Guard hesitated a split-second, still getting its bearings as it rebooted, and that was the vital window of action Jensen needed. Aiming the semi-automatic at the robot’s head, he put a shot right into its sensor grid. Bright sparks flared, but all that seemed to do was narrow the machine’s focus. Its legs stomped as it turned in place to give Jensen its full attention. He heard the whine of servos as the gun pods spun up to power.
“Shit!” He stood his ground long enough to fire a few more shots, but the EMP rounds seemed to do little to slow it.
The Box-Guard made a grinding sound and advanced on him, picking up speed with each stride. Jensen broke into a sprint as it came after him, swerving aside as one of the robot’s legs kicked away a Navig subcompact, rolling the car on to its roof. The guns tracked him, swinging back and forth as they coughed out shotgun rounds, but Jensen dodged and wove between the parked vehicles, making it hard for the machine to target him. Belatedly, a recorded message began to play, a soothing female voice speaking in Chinese delivering some kind of demand for a surrender.
When the robot stumbled into a pillar, Jensen realized that the EMP rounds had made some difference, just not enough to deal with the machine outright. Its motions were becoming sluggish and drunken.
He took a breath of dusty air and circled back around a sedan, before launching himself right at the Box-Guard. If he could just place his shots in the right spot…
The robot slammed a leg into the concrete floor with enough force to knock him off-balance and his first round went wide. He fired another, clipping the side of the Box-Guard’s menacing head, and that seemed to agitate the machine. If it was having difficulty targeting him with its guns, then the robot’s programming told it to use a more direct,
more kinetic
approach instead.
Rearing up,
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